Monsters in Our Hearts
by DragonsintheMoonlight
Summary: What would have happened if Paige had been sixteen rather than a seven-year-old? When she's dropped off in a room with a cruel, wounded demon how would they connect with her as a teenager rather than a little kid? Can the kind girl who was a budding Dalai Lama in the world before heal the broken heart of an abandoned demon? Beliel/Paige. Raffe/Penryn T to be safe


**AN: This idea came to me while I was in the middle of reading End of Days. The third book in the trilogy really made me sympathize with Beliel's character and I wanted to write a story where he finally got a happy ending. So, I ended up wondering what would have happened if Paige had been sixteen, one year younger than Penryn, rather than a seven-year-old. It made me wonder if love would possibly blossom between her and Beliel and if her kind nature could help heal his broken, damaged, abandoned heart.**

 _ **Disclaimer: I don't own Penryn and the End of Days**_

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The angel dropped Paige onto the ground. She landed with a grunt, letting out a squeak of pain as she pulled herself into the nearest corner to hide. She pulled her paralyzed legs up into her chest, trying to make herself smaller so the angel's wouldn't notice her, though it seemed as if they had already dismissed her from their minds.

Instead, the three angels hoist the injured one with the dark bat wings up onto a nearby cot. His stomach had a bloody bandage wrapped around it and he appeared as if he was dead, causing Paige to feel sympathy for him in her compassionate nature.

She watched as the bat-winged angel, or whatever he was, head lolled at an odd angle against the metal headboard. The other angels didn't bother to move him further down.

One angel comes in and places a plate of sandwiches and a glass of water on the nightstand. The other two angels left, leaving Paige alone with the sandwich-bearing angel, the unconscious bat-winged one, and the Burnt-winged angel that kidnapped her.

"Not so bossy now, is he?" her kidnapper asked. He looked amused by the sight of the other angel crumpled on the cot with a bloody wound on his stomach.

Paige watched as the two angels lifted the food out of the other's reach, laughing about it and calling him a reject. She found herself filled with another pang of sympathy toward the bat-winged angel on the cot. Surely he couldn't be as bad as they made him out to be, after all, _Burnt_ was the one who kidnapped her and he was the one saying this about him.

The two angels left, leaving Paige and the bat-winged angel alone in the room.

Eventually, the bat-winged angel began to stir. Once he was awake, he tried to reach the food they left him, only to be unable to get it because of his injuries.

He flopped back down on the cot after several attempts with a sound of frustration. Paige didn't think he was aware of her presence yet, and felt almost as guilty as she felt afraid while she watched him without him knowing.

But eventually, he noticed her, casting a glare into the corner as his eyes turned vicious. "What are you doing here?"

She shrank back against the wall, hoping she could sink into it and escape the angel's hostile stare.

"Did they send you here to spy on me?" he demanded, causing her to shake her head rapidly.

"Get out!" he spat at her.

Paige's eyes widened. She wasn't sure if she could get out. She'd have to drag herself across the floor to get there and then she would have to escape the angels that kidnapped her.

Thankfully, he spoke again before she had to make a decision, "Wait. Make yourself useful and bring me the water and sandwiches from that table."

She stared at him in fear. This was almost as bad as having to leave; Paige couldn't walk. What if he got mad about her taking too long to get to the food and water on the table and killed her for it? Sure, he had trouble getting up right now, but she bet if he got angry enough he could lash out and at least hurt her. And she would be unable to run away from him.

"Do it now!" he bellowed suddenly.

She shrank back for a moment before lying on the ground and dragging herself toward him.

His face changed as he saw her dragging herself. "What's wrong with you? Are you broken?"

She glanced up at him, not sure if she should be offended about him calling her broken. "No, I just can't walk like other people."

"That means you're broken," he said blatantly.

She stopped moving, propping herself up on her elbows so she could look at him better. "No, it just means I move in a different way."

"Yeah, crawling on the floor like a worm," he laughed bitterly. "Show me, Little Worm. Entertain me. Crawl over here and I'll give you some of my water."

As angry as she should have been that he wanted to turn her disability into a spectacle, she looked at the water with a dry gulp and couldn't bring herself to snap at him. She never snapped much at people anyway; her sister always called her a budding Dalai Lama. Out of the two of them, Paige was the gentle one, the one who always made people feel better. Penryn was the protector, the one who always made sure they were safe and took care of their family since their father left and their mother was schizophrenic.

"I can see you want it," the bat-winged man said before telling Paige just what would happen to her if she didn't get a drink soon, including telling her that her tongue would swell and she'd want to bite it to drink her blood she would be so thirsty. "Ever been thirsty enough to want to kill a man for his cup of water? No? You'll know that feeling soon."

He knew how it feels to be dying of thirst too well for it not to have been personal experience.

He touched bandage on his chest. "Come over here, Little Worm. Show me how the broken and abandoned 'walk' in a different way and I'll give you something to drink."

"I'm not abandoned," Paige said in a steely voice. He didn't know about her sister. He didn't know that Penryn would come find her.

The bat-winged angel scoffed. "Name one person who didn't abandon you."

"My sister," she said.

He proceeded to demand where Penryn was and eventually ended up lying to Paige, saying that Penryn gave her to him because she was a burden to her.

"They're all like that," he said in a voice that wasn't exactly kind, yet in a strange way, it was still friendly. "In the end, they always abandon us. No matter how much we love them or how much we'd do for them. We're never good enough. We're the rejects, you and I. The abandoned."

"You're a liar!" she yelled at him. "Just because someone's hurt you, abandoned _you,_ doesn't mean my sister will abandon _me."_

"You'll see," the bat-winged angel said. "Nothing will ever be given to us freely the way it is for other people. Not love, not respect, not even friendship. The only way we'll get any of that is to put them all in their rightful place beneath us. The last thing we can afford is to be helpless and weak. You have to be strong and beat them into submission. And if they beg and behave, then maybe we'll let them be our lap dogs. That's the closest outsiders like us will ever come to feeling wanted."

Paige didn't believe a word that came out of his mouth, but she did feel a pang of sympathy course through her as pity for him filled her heart. Even if he was saying cruel words to her, even if he did lie about Penryn, she knew that he didn't believe he was lying about the rest of it. This bat-winged angel truly believed that what he was saying was true.

"Would you like some water?" he asked in a neutral tone, his voice and expression refusing to betray whatever he might be feeling. "Crawl over to me, Little Worm, and I will give you some."

Paige began to crawl laboriously across the floor, dragging her limp legs behind her as she stared at him distrustfully. He had lied to her about Penryn; he could be lying to her about the water. But all the same, she was dying of thirst.

The bat-winged angel clapped. "Bravo, Little Worm. Bravo. Such a miniature likeness of your kind. You monkeys are so cleverly desperate to do whatever it takes to survive. Compared to your people and the things some of them will do, I'm practically a nice guy."

She glared at him. "We're not monkeys."

The bat-winged angel laughed in amusement, only for his face to turn into a glower when she reached the table and crawled up a metal chair that was next to it to reach the water and sandwiches.

"I didn't say you could have that," he growled. "I told you to come to me, not the table." He leaned forward angrily, only to fall back in pain, a hand on his bleeding wound. He exhaled deeply as she reached out to touch the glass. Thirst burned Paige's throat and she stared at it longingly.

"Of course, you're just like the rest," he sneered at her. "There isn't a creature alive who looks out for anyone but themselves. Even a little worm like you. So you learned a lesson from your sister, did you? The only thing that matters in the end is your own survival. It's what humans and cockroaches are best at."

She looked at him, glaring at first, but then her expression softened and she wondered just what it was that turned this bat-winged angel into a distrusting, pessimistic being.

Paige moved toward the bat-winged angel, the glass in her hand. She pushed herself up onto her dead knees with her hands, holding the glass out to him.

"My sister is coming for me," she said. "You can't fool me into thinking she's not."

He glared at her. "Maybe she didn't say that to me and maybe she didn't give you to me, but do you really think there isn't at least some part of her that isn't relieved you're gone? I mean, look at you: a teenage girl and your teenage sister has to take care of you. How long do you think she'll be willing to do it before? How long do you think it'll be before she wishes you were gone?"

"She'd never wish I was gone," Paige said. "She loves me, and I love her. She'll come for me and she will never abandon me, even if people have abandoned you."

Before he could reply, she stretched the glass out further.

He stared at her. "Aren't you thirsty, Little Worm? Why not drink it yourself?" he sounded so suspicious, it made Paige feel sorry for him.

"You need it more," she said stubbornly. After all, didn't he? She was thirsty too, but the bat-winged angel in front of her was wounded while she wasn't.

"Don't you know you'll die if you don't get some water?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

Paige held the glass out steadily. "Yes, but I'm _not_ like everyone else."

The bat-winged angel took the glass and downed it in several gulps, though he did hesitate when there was only a third of it left. He sneered at her again. "See? That's what happens when you're nice."

She glared at him. "You're infuriating!"

"Excuse me?" he demanded.

"First you want me to give you the water and then when I do you act like I shouldn't have," she snapped. "You act like you want someone to be nice to you, but then when they are you can't handle it and do something stupid."

"Listen here, you little-" he started, but Paige flung the sandwiches from the nightstand at him. They fell apart on his chest and the bat-winged angel surprisingly let out a small chuckle. "You didn't think that through very well, did you?"

"What are you talking about?" she demanded

"I'm wounded, I can't get up," he said. "You could do just about anything you wanted to me, and you throw sandwiches at me?"

Paige's eyes narrowed at him. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Why not?" he demanded.

"Because," she replied, deciding that he didn't deserve a complete answer.

Before the bat-winged angel could reply, she scooted the metal chair away and out of his reach, resting her head on her hands. She was going to ignore him.

A while later, Burnt came back.

The moment Paige saw him she scrambled off her chair and dragged herself under the bat-winged angel's cot.

"That's where it went," Burnt said, watching her.

"And where did you go?" the bat-winged angel asked.

Burnt told him that he didn't seem to need them so they left him food and water and decided to let him sleep it off. "How are you feeling?" Burnt asked, crouching down to stare at Paige underneath the bed.

She shrank back even more, heart pounding in her chest.

"Just fantastic, thank you for asking," Bat Wings sounded sarcastic and angry.

Burnt ignored him and reached under the bed, grasping Paige by the arm. She screamed as the angel dragged her out, the upper half of her body that still worked squirming desperately in his grasp.

Something in the bat-winged angel's normally hating blue eyes changed. "Let her go," he bellowed, eyes flashing and his voice commanding. Even weak and wounded, he didn't look like someone anyone would want to mess with.

Burnt let go of Paige in surprise.

The bat-winged angel grabbed Burnt by his arm and jerked him into his face. Paige was surprised that that didn't hurt him with his injuries, but perhaps it did and he just didn't show it. "You don't touch that girl," Bat Wings snarled. "You don't even breathe without my permission. Uriel gave you to me to command. You think he'd spend a second of his illustrious life wondering what happened to you if you ended up a splatter on the wall."

A nervous look flashed through Burnt's eyes. "Why would you do that?"

"You really thought I wouldn't notice that you were trying to starve and drain me with thirst?"

"We left you food and water," Burnt grunted in reply, trying to rip out of Bat Wings's grasp. "We brought you back, too, when we could have left you on the streets to die."

"Uriel would have plucked you alive if you hadn't," Bat Wings said. "You boys still don't have the nerve to lie to him, do you? Well, his punishment will feel playful compared to what I'll do if I ever wake up to dinner out of my reach again. Understood?"

Burnt nodded grudgingly and Bat Wings let him go.

Then the bat-winged angel ordered Burnt to bring him meat, and to the surprise of Paige, who had scrambled back under the bed, he told him to bring her sandwiches, water, and milk.

"Problem?" she heard Bat Wings ask. Obviously Burnt must have given him some clarification that it wasn't, because then he said, "Too bad. Now I'll have to wait to finger paint the walls with your blood."

If Paige wasn't hiding under the bed, she would have been staring at him in horror. In all her sixteen years of life, despite living with a crazy mother who rambled on about demons and the devil all the time, she'd never heard someone say they'd finger paint the walls with another person- er, _angel's-_ blood. Part of it made her want to get away from Bat Wings, but the other part that knew he was saying this to protect her made her want to stay closer to him. He may be cruel and mean, but so far he was her only ally here, the only one who would protect her when she couldn't protect herself because of her disability. Not for the first time, Paige wished she could walk.

"Come out, Little Worm," she heard Bat Wings say in a gentle voice. "The big bad angel is gone."

Slowly, Paige crept out from under the bed, eyeing him cautiously. "Why do you say that like you're not one?"

"Because I'm not," he replied.

"What do you mean?" she asked

"I'm a demon," he replied.

Paige's eyes widened in horror. A _demon_ was the one protecting and defending her while the angels were the ones wanting to do God knows what to her?"

"Don't look so surprised," he said. "I obviously don't have big, fluffy angel wings."

"Well, no but… why would a demon work with angels?" she asked.

"I made a deal with their boss," he replied.

She licked her lips. "How did you…?"

"What?" he asked. "Make a deal with an angel? Or perhaps you mean how I became a demon?"

She nodded to the second one, nervously inclining her head. She didn't want to make her only ally mad.

He licked his lips, tilting his head up to get a better look at her. "A demon, Little Worm, is nothing more than an angel gone bad."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"A Fallen angel," he replied. "I was once one of those feathered bastards, though it's been so long I barely remember what it felt like to be an angel."

"What did you do?" she asked.

His eyes narrowed. "Shut up."

She clamped her mouth shut, not wanting to make him angry.

He reached out suddenly, causing her to shrink back. "Calm down; I was just going to pull you up onto the bed."

"Why?" she asked suspiciously. Could he want to…?"

"Calm down, Little Worm," he said with a small laugh, "I'm not going to violate you. Even if I was in a condition where I could, I wouldn't."

"Why?" she found herself asking whether than accepting what he said.

"Because," he replied. "Now will you let me lift you?"

"Are you sure you can?" she asked.

He nodded. "Of course. You think a mere wound can stop me from doing something if I really want to?"

Her eyes narrowed. "If that's true, then the part about you being in no condition to hurt me is a lie."

"I'm not going to hurt you," he replied. "I have a soft spot for broken Daughters of Man."

"Daughters of Man?"

"That's our name for you women," he replied, grasping her around her elbows and hoisting her up onto the bed. Once done, he took in a few deep breaths, his wound bleeding more than it had before, and he rested his head back. "See? I have no wish to harm you."

"I don't understand why," she confessed. "I mean, you're a demon and you don't want to hurt me. They're…"

"What? You think that because they're angels they can't be bad?" he laughed, only stopping when it brought pain to his wound.

"You should lie still," she chided him.

"You should stop saying things that amuse me, Little Worm," he countered.

"That's not my name," Paige said defensively.

"Well, forgive me if you haven't told me your name," he said sarcastically.

"Paige," she said.

"Paige," he quirked an eyebrow at her. "You mean like a page in a book?"

"It's spelled with an I," she said.

"That doesn't change how it sounds," he said.

"Why? What's your name, _Bat Wings,"_ Paige demanded.

His eyes narrowed at her. "Beliel."

"Beliel," she whispered.

The demon closed his eyes, relaxing his muscles.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Beliel demanded. "I'm trying to sleep. You should too."

She narrowed her eyes at him, but settled down near the foot of the bed.

He looked up at her. "Are you really going to scrunch yourself up back there?"

She looked over at him. "Well…"

He managed to sit up a bit and dragged her toward him by the arm. Paige let out a yelp of surprise, but the demon just plopped her down beside him, leaning back with a grunt and shutting his eyes again.

She blinked at him in surprise, but Beliel didn't react. In about ten minutes she heard his breathing even out and knew he was asleep.

Paige stared at the demon quizzically. She didn't know what to make of him.


End file.
